Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-10-08

sCeHt. Wuab cares ne IOT TlSnl, OF
decency, or the honor of his family
namcP Turned u of employment,
depleted ia health, cast down in spir-
its, the typhoid fever strikes him in the
smallest room on the fourth story of "a
fifth rate boarding house, cursing God,
and calling for his mother, and fight
ing black demons from the dying pill
low. which is besweated and tori TO
rags. He plunges out Of this world
with the shrek Of a destroyed spirit.
Alas for that kind of fun! 1t is re-
morse. 1t is despair. 1t is blackness
OF darkness. 1t is voe unending and
long reverDerating, and crushing as
though all the mountains OF all CONT
nents rolled on him IN n avalanche.
My soul, stand back from such fun.
Young man, there is no fun in ship
~wreckipg your character, no fun in dis
grazing your fathers name. There is
no fun in breaking your mothers
heart. There is no fun in the physical
paDgs of the dissclute. There is no fun
in the proiiigate's deathbed. There is
no fun in an undone eternity. Para
StlouSy Oul Vi luC dSlltb VI IL DuIuJ IOSCl
said he could re-create the rose, but he
failed in the alchemic undertaking, and
roseate life once burned down in sin
can never again be made to blossom.
II PLUMB / APPLIED.
Oh, this plumb line of the everlast-
ing right! God will throw it over all
our lives to show us our moral de1ec-
tons. God will throw it over all
churches to show whether they are do.
ing useful work or are standing in
stances of idlcness and pretense. He
will throw that plumb line over all ma
tons to demonstrate whether their
laws are just or cruel, their rulers good
or Dad, their ambitions holy or infam-
GUS. Tie threw that plumb line over
the Spanish monarchy of other days,
and what became Of herp Ask the
splintered halks of her overthrown Ar
mazda. He threw that plumb line over
French Imperialism, and what was the
resultp Ask the ruins of the Tuileries,
and the fallen column of the Place Ven
dome, and the grave trenches of Sc
dan, and the blood of revolutions at
different times rolling through the
Champs Elysees. He threw that plumb
line over ancient Rome, and what be-
came of the realm OF the Caesars? Ask
her war eagles, with heak dulled and
wings broken. flung helpless into the
Tiber. He threw it over the Assyriau
Empire or a thousand years, the thrones
of Semiramis, and S~ardanapalus, and
Shalmaneser, Of twenty-seven %victori-
Gus expeditions, the cities of Phpnicia
kneeling to the sceptre, and I'll the
world blanched in the presence. What
became of all the GRANDEUR Ask the
fallen palaces of Khorsabod and the
corpses of her one hundred and eighty
five thousand soldiery slain by the an
gel of the Lord in one night, and the
Assyrian sculptures of the worlds mu-
seums, all that now remains of that
splendor before which nations stag
gered and crouchcd. God % now
throwing that
PLUME Il
over this American republic, and it is
q solemn time with this nation, and
whether we keep his Sabbaths or dis
honor them, whether righteousness or
iniquity dominate, whether we are
Christian or lntidel. whether we fulfill
u mission or refuse it. whether we
are for God or against Him, Wen de-
eide whether We shall as a nation 90 on
N higher and higher career or go down
in the same grave where Babylon, and
Nineveh, and Thebes, and Assyria are
s%epulchIed.
But" say you, .'if there be nothing
but a plumb line what can any of us
do, for there is an old proverb which
truthfully declares: If the best mans
faults we're written on his forehead it
would make him pull his hat over his
eyes What shall we do when, accord
ing to Isaiah. God shall lay judgment
to the line and Righteousness to the
ptunetv'" All, here is where
THE GOSPEL
comes in with a Saviour's righteous
ness to make up for Il deficits. And
while | see hanging IN the wall
plumb line, | see also hanging there a
cross. And while the one condemns
us the other saves us, il only we will
hold to it. And here and now you may
be set free with a more glorious liberty
than Hampden, or Sidney, or a nosci-
usko ever fought for. Not out yonder,
or down there, or up here, but just
where you are you may get it. The
invalid proprietress OF a wealthy estate
in Scotland visited the continent of
Europe to get rid OF her m~aladies, and
she went to Baden Baden and tried
those waters, and went to Carlsbad and
tried those waters, and went to Ham
burg and tried those waters, and in
stead of getting better she got worse,
ard in despair she said TO a physician:
What shall l doP" His reply was:
Medicine can do nothing for you.
You have one chance in the waters OF
Pit Keatnly, Scotland" ''Is it posi-
ble?" she replied, "why, those waters
are on my own estate!" She returned,
and drank of
Fl FOUNTAIN
at her own gate, and in tive months
completely recovered. Oh sick, and
diseased, and SHINING, and dying
hearer, why 90 trudging all the world